Railways are complex systems, with each component being interdependent on other components within the system. Attempts have been made in the past to optimize the operation of a particular component or groups of components of the railway system, such as for the locomotive, for a particular operating characteristic such as fuel consumption, which is a major component of the cost of operating a railway system. Some estimates indicate that fuel consumption is the second largest railway system operating cost, second only to labor costs.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,144,901 proposes optimizing the operation of a train for a number of operating parameters, including fuel consumption. However, optimizing the performance of a particular train, which is only one component of a much larger system; including, for example, the railway network of track, other trains, crews, rail yards, departure points, and destination points, may not yield an overall system-wide optimization. Optimizing the performance of only one component of the system (even though it may be an important component such as a train) may actually result in increased system-wide costs, because this prior art approach does not consider the interrelationships and impacts on other components and on the overall railway system efficiency. As one example, optimizing at the train ignores potential efficiencies for a locomotive within the individual train, which efficiencies may be available if the locomotives were free to optimize their own performance.
One system and method of planning at the railway track network system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,172. Movement planners such as this are primarily focused on movement of the trains through the network based on business objective functions (BOF) defined by the railroad company, and not necessarily on the basis of optimizing performance or a particular performance parameter such as fuel consumption. Further, the movement planner does not extend the optimization down to the train (much less the consist or locomotive), nor to the railroad service and maintenance operations that plan for the servicing of the trains or locomotives.
Thus, in the prior art, there has been no recognition that optimization of operations for a railway system requires a multi-level approach, with the gathering of key data at each level and communicating data with other levels in the system.